One of Us - BBC 1 TV review

One of Us, the first episode of which aired on BBC 1 this evening, is a thriller written by Jack and Harry Williams, whose The Missing engrossed me not so long ago. And I must say right away that this one hooked me even more than that gripping tale of a boy abducted in France, and the impact of the crime on his parents.

The story got off to a dramatic start. We move very quickly from a family wedding to a murder scene - the two newlyweds have been killed. But this isn't a whodunit - we see the killer with his victims. And soon we see him again, desperate for cash, and eventually robbing a Lexus driver at knife point, stealing his car, and driving manically into the Scottish night.

These scenes are intercut with scenes featuring members of the families of the murdered couple. Dark secrets, needless to say, are soon hinted at. One character has been raped; another seems to be a possible stalker; a third is a troubled alcoholic; and so on. The killer crashes his car - and it turns out that his destination is the postcode of the homes of the two families. What is going on?

At first, the bereaved go to the aid of the grievously injured killer. But a news story on the TV alerts them to the fact that he is the murderer, although it's far from clear what his motive was (robbery, or something more complex?) They put him in a cage, one of them cancels the ambulance they had called, and the next morning, the murderer is found dead. But who killed him? Maybe it is a whodunit after all.

I really enjoyed this one. The storyline is powerful, and the cast, which includes Juliet Stevenson and Adrian Edmondson, is a strong one. I'll definitely tune in next week.

The Missing - BBC One - final episode review (no spoilers)

The Missing came to an end on BBC 1 tonight, after eight weeks of mounting tension. I don't intend to say anything in this post that amounts to a spoiler, which limits the scope of my comments. But one thing I can say is that, for me,this series was second only to the superb Happy Valley as British television crime series of the year. I said when reviewing episode one that I intended to watch the following week, and soon I was completely hooked. It became must-watch television.

A great deal of credit goes to the writers, Harry and Jack Williams, as well as to an excellent cast. James Nesbitt and Frances O'Connor were brilliant as the parents whose five year old son goes missing during a holiday in France, portraying with great sensitivity the trauma of such a terrible experience,and also the different ways in which their characters struggled to deal with an almost unimaginable calamity.

I say 'almost' unimaginable,because I suspect many, perhaps most, parents have found themselves contemplating, at one time or another, what it would feel like if such a catastrophe tore their lives apart. But it's not the sort of thing one wants to dwell on for very long. For me, the emotions portrayed in some scenes of The Missing were almost too much to bear.

That's not to say it was a perfect story in terms of plotting, and I had mixed feelings about the one or two aspects of the final episode, and the final scene in particular. Some viewers, I know, have found the switches between events surrounding the disappearance and those of the present day quite hard to follow, although I felt the transitions were done quite smoothly, given the complexity of the story structure. Overall, this was a powerful and affecting drama, and one that will stay in my mind for a long time.